The described technology relates generally to client applications invoking services provided by server applications.
Many business applications need to use services provided by various business services (e.g., credit checking services and accounting services). These business services may be provided by service providers that are different from the organization that develops the business application. For example, a developer may sell a customer relationship management application that needs to use a credit checking service when qualifying a new customer. Credit checking services may be provided by a service provider that is not affiliated with the developer. Traditionally, the developer of such business applications would obtain an interface to the business service and integrate the interface into the business application. The interface may be provided as a module that is statically or dynamically linked into the business application as needed. When the business application needs to have the service performed, the business application invokes the interface, passing the required input arguments and receiving output arguments in return. For example, an interface to a credit checking service may have the name of the company as an input argument and a numerical credit rating value as an output argument. When such business applications are sold or licensed to customers, the customers typically are restricted to using the business services of service providers that the developer of the business application has selected.
Many customers, however, would like to have the flexibility to select their own service provider. For example, a customer may have purchased multiple business applications from different developers that all require similar business services. The customer would typically like to have the same service provider provide similar services for all their business applications, rather than having a different developer-specified service provider for each business application. In addition to pre-selecting the service providers for business applications, the developers of the business applications and the service providers may also specify the communications protocols and transport mechanisms that are supported by the provided business services. From a customer's perspective, multiple communications protocols and transport mechanisms are difficult to support.
It would be desirable to have a mechanism that would allow a customer of business applications the flexibility to select a desired service provider for providing services and to select communications protocols and transport mechanisms for use in communicating with such service providers.